Kara Smith

Kara works with legal marketers and small to mid-size business to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

Social media public relations for businesses & legal marketers
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As an expression of my belief in love, abundance and prosperity for all human beings, for the last 4-years, in addition to what I do professionally, I worked with Landmark Worldwide and their Family Division. In that roll, I met dozens of children between the age of 8-17 years old and their families. I’ve heard young people, of every nationality and religion, not only say what they were committed to in their families, schools and communities, I watched them take powerful actions in the midst of knowing the difference they make in the world. Being in the presence of their self-awareness simply lifted me.

However, in one brief moment, upon hearing the news of the tragedy, at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina, my heart sank as sadness settled in, and my sense of being able to make any difference was diminished. Such is the nature of being a target, directly or indirectly, of racial hatred.

I was reminded of the multitude of times I’ve felt this way as a child in the late 1960’s and 70’s. The emotions running through me took me to similar times in my life. I truly feel for all people – and racial hatred against African Americans affects me in a manner that is distinctly different. There is a sensation of deep hurt and helplessness connected to the first time I experienced it as a child when Martin was shot. Again, when I saw my father thrown against the hood of our car by a policeman and handcuffed while wearing a tuxedo. Again, watching the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and every time I hear the report of a man of color being attacked.

The list of occurrences that drum up feelings of dread that rise up inside of me EVERY TIME racial hatred toward African-Americans occurs, is far too long. The worst thought I had was, after all of the work, protests and marches, and legislative changes – nothing had made a difference. I felt helpless, as I also ached for the young man who committed this horrible crime, and the deep hatred and disconnect he had to be feeling.

I am astonished of how adept us Americans are at accepting the suffering of people we deem to be different than ourselves. So, when my friend shared John Stewart’s broadcast with me, my thought was, “There is hope for our broadcast media, they are a primary source for thought patterning in our country afterall.”

The fact is, us human beings are designed intrinsically the same. There is no arguing that. Blood and bone marrow can be donated and babies made by a healthy human male and a healthy human female – Period. Race, religion, and political beliefs simply make no difference when it comes to our species. We are designed that simply – Us humans just keep messing up our planet with our so called intellectual ability.

Two days later, I am comforted knowing that my actions, despite my feelings, l do make an impact. I am producing a feature film that empowers the spiritual strength and dignity of young awareness. I believe there is no more powerful means of communicating and impacting a large number of people than through the art of cinema. I believe in legal and social change and I invite you to step into whatever your self-expression is that generates another’s greatness, by taking action. All of us doing this will make THE difference.

I am excited to say that I have been accepted as a tutor with University Tutor.com.

While I adore children, being a full-time teacher was not my calling. Tutoring is an invaluable way for me to make an educational contribution to the Phoenix Valley, while working with students to exceed their expectations.I would love to hear what you’re doing to express your devotion and admiration for your neighborhood or organization!

Having watched Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech today, I find myself emotionally moved and in love.

I was less than a year old when the March on Washington took place. My parents, our family and all of their friends, neighbors, clergy and business owners in their circle where there. My heart is full as I picture this event. My spirit is soaring as I remember my parents and all they did for me. My father, Arthur C. Smith was a Tuskegee Airman, a member of the Original Freedom fighters, and an associate professor at Cheyney University, the first black college in the country. My mother, Valerie Louise Harewood Moultrie, was one of the first three African American women in the United States to hold the position of Vice Principal. She was one of the first black people to be invited to play Contract Bridge in the American Contract Bridge Club due to her expertise, integrating, an organization exclusive to white players.

My parents gave me the invaluable gift of a private primary school education at a Quaker school and growing up in neighborhoods surrounded by like-minded people with ethnic and religious backgrounds from across the globe.

Today, I am present to how the laws of this great land have shifted since its inception. As American citizens, in the midst of a injustices that are yet to be rectified, we are blessed with abundances beyond measure, made available to us all by design. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke our future as a people into existence that day. Four years after his death, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American to serve as a the Supreme Court Justice under president John F. Kennedy, after being nominated by President Johnson in 1967.

Today, we have had an African-American President in office for almost 8-years. We are living extraordinary lives at an extraordinary time.

Over the last several years of working with lawyers and small business owners, I have found that the last thing they need is another long list of things to do. Every Time I’ve proposed plan of action with a new client and they try to take on management of a segment of the tasks themselves – It has failed.

Unfortunately, already busy paralegals, assistants, and marketing managers can’t possibly take on the amount of nurturing necessary to take on a social media plan effectively. It NEVER WORKS!! Not having the time and technical know-how are the primary reasons small business owners or firms either do not have an online presence or have one that is functioning as a business builder.

The value of a domain for a small business is far more significant than many realize. Not only does it provide the foundation for one’s home page, but it can also be used to point to one’s Facebook or other social media site. It may even be used for branded email – a hallmark for “real” businesses.

An article published on Forbes.com last November illustrates just how invaluable our online presence is to making your business viable and overcoming your competition.

Your online presence is a great way to make your business stand out. It enables you to build great relationships and support your clients and customers, let them know how much you care for and appreciate them. You’ll establish your expertise and make yourself known.

You don’t want to miss the opportunity to remind people of the quality of your customer service.

You want to make sure your online presence looks as good as it possibly can. There are some terrific, cost-effective ways to look like you really know what you are doing. Looking established will set you apart right from the start.

If you take your online presence seriously, there is no better way to compete with “The Big Boys.” In fact, it is entirely possible to take a bite out of larger competitors’ volume.

Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick’s new book, The Art of Social Media, is just out. Since I’ve written about Guy’s work previously and The Karasma Media Legal Marketing Blog is part of the Alltop blog list, I am one of several social media aggregators Guy has given a complementary Kindle book to. I’ll be making comments on each chapter and connecting to other readers, so I’m looking forward to everyone’s commentary.

Whether you’re promoting a business, a product, or yourself, social media is near the top of what will determine your success or failure. With over 100 practical tips, tricks, and insights, our book provides a ground-up strategy to produce a focused, thorough, and compelling presence on the most popular social-media platforms.

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users will guide you through the steps of building your foundation, amassing your digital assets, going to market, optimizing your profile, attracting more followers, and effectively integrating social media and blogging. For beginners overwhelmed by too many choices, as well as seasoned professionals eager to improve their game,our bookis full of tactics that have been proven to work in the real world.

Since relocating to Phoenix from New York 3-years ago, I have been in an inquiry about Karasma Media, social media. my commitments to health, children and the planet and how they are all going to fit together going forward. I am excited to be creating a new, fulfilling pathway for myself and those I work with. Being acknowledged by Guy after being silent on my blog for a year, is exactly the kick-start I needed. More to come about this in the coming days!

Demand Metric is a marketing advisory firm that provides practical online tools and training. They have built a membership community of over 30,000 marketing professionals in 75 countries. They created a truly appealing visual guide for content marketing that I wanted to share with you.

My thought: Very useful for those responsible for law firm or mid-sized business growth.

I’ve been using Twitter for several years as an invaluable tool to share links my audience is interested in. When Twitter first started, a lot of people used it like a supercharged texting device, but it has been more than that for quite some time.

It is useful to think of Twitter at that time as a constantly refreshing list of links with short descriptions — a series of doors with signs on them.

Twitter announced that images and videos will display directly in users’ timeline via Vine– like this!

If the world of social media is making you frustrated and/or you’re tired of spending far too much on Search Engine Optimization that’s not working, we can help.

The ways potential clients and customers find you has drastically changed in the last few years.

In addition to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, people are using review sites like Yelp, city guides like Citysearch, and mobile apps like Foursquare to discover businesses and services they want to use. This is great news because there are now even more ways for new clients and customers to find you.

Unfortunately, all these new means of discovery, now mean you have a big problem.

There are now more places for you to manage, all at the same time! Many of these listings are automatically generated and can often contain incorrect or out-of-date information. Certainly, incorrect, out of date information is not the first impression you want someone to have of you or your organization.

That’s why it is so important to be in control of your online listings.

Here are 7 ways to do it:

1. Identify your industry’s hot spots

Take the time to identify the places that your target audience is turning to when searching for businesses similar to yours.

The best way to do this is to search for your business on a site like Google and see what type of results show up. Be on the lookout for any publishers that specialize in your particular industry, as they will offer the biggest opportunity to reach your next great customer.

Once you have an inventory of the information that’s out there, you can start to take steps to control it.

2. Optimize your website with location information

Publishers like TripAdvisor or UrbanSpoon rely on your websites to populate their platforms. Making sure your contact information is up to date on your own site will help avoid having potential new customers sent to the wrong location.

3. Claim your listings

A lot of the top publishers will give you the opportunity to “claim” your listings. Claiming your listings lets you take control of the information that people are finding on these sites. You can manually update contact information, upload photos, and even share updates about specials and promotions, depending on the platform you decide to use.

4. Encourage reviews and recommendations on social

Believe it or not, the interactions you have on social media can positively impact your search result rankings..Encouraging your fans and followers to share feedback and interact with your business on sites like Yelp or Foursquare will also help ensure the quality of user-generated content.

5. Offer location information to data aggregators

As you may suspect, collecting information from across the web and publishing it in a single location is hard work. That’s why many of the top publishers rely on data aggregators to provide relevant information about your brand.

6. Pay to sponsor listings

Just like you can pay to promote posts on sites like Facebook or Twitter, you can also pay to sponsor your listing on a number of the top listing sites.While this won’t help update information on other sites, it will increase the visibility of your best information on your most important platforms.

7. Find better solutions.

With a tool like SinglePlatform, you can manage all of your listings from one place and make updates across our entire publishing network of search engines, city guides, review sites, and mobile apps. You can also add your menu, products, and services everywhere that matters online.

You are probably aware of the multiple algorithm updates Google has implemented over the past few years. The prior updates were focused on making Google better at gathering information, for example, indexing websites more often and identifying spammy content.

Hummingbird is focused on the user. It is about Google getting better at understanding what searchers really want and providing them with better answers.

The biggest improvements involve longer search queries, which is quite a breakthrough for those of us who take pride in their contents authenticity. In other words, rather than simply looking at each individual word in a search, Google is now reviewing the searcher’s query as a whole and processing the meaning behind it.

Previously, Google (and most other search engines) looked at the individual words in a search and returned results that matched those words individually and as a whole. Now Google is focusing on context and trying to understand user’s intent in order to deliver more relevant results and better answers.

Google has made search more “human friendly” by making Google better at understanding language and how people communicate.

First, to provide full disclosure… I’ve been given a generous offer from Nearwoo.com! Due to the ongoing increase in traffic to my site, I’ve been given 3-months of Near Woo, in exchange for writing blog posts about my experience using the platform.

There are thousands of potential customers around your business using their smartphones. Near Woo identifies phones around your location using GPS and cell phone towers.

Wondering how NearWoo works? Near Woo delivers your message directly to consumers on their mobile devices when they’re in your neighborhood. There are literally hundreds of people your law firm or business right now, business using their phones to surf the internet, play games, listen to music, read the news and so much more. Near Woo delivers your message directly to the customer’s phone while they’re engaging in these activities.

Now is the ideal time for you to sign-up for at least 1 neighborhood right now and start getting some local mobile advertising visibility for your firm or Local Small Business.

GOOGLE ANALYSIS OF MOBILE SEARCH

As consumers increasingly turn to their mobile phones, it is critical for businesses to understand the range of “mobile conversions” that can occur, such as phone calls, store visits, or purchases on other devices. In partnership with Nielsen, Google analysed over 6000 mobile searches and the actions that resulted, drawing precise and measurable connections between mobile searches and the online and offline conversions that they drive.

77% of mobile searches occur at home

61% Called the business

24% of users use their smart phones to search for services

My ad started running on October 19th. Initially, I’ve been getting some fairly good clicks on my banner ad, averaging about 20 per day. However, I hadn’t been getting any follow-through actions of liking me on Facebook or Following Me on Twitter. So, I spoke with Kristi Wilcoxz, Near Woo’s Director of Partner Relations and we “tweeked” the wording on my ad and changed the graphic!

I’ll be writing another post in a couple of weeks with an update of my results. I’ll also be adding a Client Relationship Management features to my blog, so I’ll be able to provide you with more thorough analysis of my results as we progress.